Do you see yourself as two people? You may not see it at first, but if you think about it – you have the achieving, determined and smooth talking entrepreneur inside you, and you also have the you that you take home. The caring mother or father, brother or sister. Or maybe there is one version of you for strangers, and one for friends?
Do you have to divide yourself between your home life and your work life? Should you have to?
This was always something that concerned me when I worked in training: and as we approach the Personal Leadership Programme (starting today!) it’s important to remember the origins of it all, and why the PLP remains so successful. Much of it comes from the life experiences I had before the PLP was first in place, when I was still working in management training.
The fact remained that no matter how ‘successful’ the company claimed to be at management training, and no matter how great the people said the training was, once they had returned to work the next day they had forgotten most of what they had learned before they had even put it into practise! 6-8 weeks after, all delegates had forgotten 90% of the course. This happened too often to count, and for me, this was unacceptable and disillusioning. I came out of the business, and after what can only be described as an extremely testing year, threw myself into qualifying in sport’s massage, aromatherapy, Reiki Healing and more. I left no stone unturned!
It was on these courses I met people from all walks of life, including countless business professionals. I asked several how they applied what they learned at the courses into their work, and to my surprise the response was, more often than not: ‘This is for me. Not for work.’ Again, reinforcing this idea of being two people – on a daily basis! One for work and one for play.
It was then an idea struck me. What if this was why all the training I’d come across over the years had been nine times out of ten unsuccessful? What if there could be a programme that appealed to just the one person – for both work and life outside of business? Could I do it?
On most training programmes, trainers are appealing to people’s heads: what makes sense? They get them to think about the best ways to lead, inspire and motivate, using all sorts of models to make you understand. The training is all aimed at head level, meaning it is swiftly forgotten when life begins to get in the way again. Why? Because their heartshaven’t been engaged, so they’ll never be able to make lasting change.
When I realised that the question should be ‘What sort of leader do I want to be?’ instead of ‘What do I need to do to be a great leader’, I hit a turning point and my whole life and my approach changed. I began to only run programmes that affected the whole person, in both work and life, in order to create lasting change in life as a whole. It was here that the PLP was born, and since has been rolled out to tens of thousands of people across the globe and counting; inspiring a new generation of leaders.
Remember, that in order to become a great leader, you must be able to apply your principles to all aspects of your life. Once you do this, you will begin to see the rewards and results. The PLP this week will be running today and tomorrow and will be revisited on the 18th February, so I will keep you updated with our ten delegates’ progress and stories.
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